As on a darkling plain
by Xairathan
Summary: Mari isn't good at confrontation. She's equally horrible with running away from her problems.


**Day 1**

Mari's put the hillside and Kyoto University to her back, heading towards the center of the city. She carries the fledgling outline of a plan in her mind, the first steps of which she's currently carrying out. She's left the familiar warmth of her apartment for the impersonal rush of cars beside sidewalks, too-bright neon lights beginning to light the gaps between buildings where the rays of the setting sun don't reach.

She's been walking for several hours, putting miles between herself and the university, only now beginning to feel like no one would be able to find her here; no one would think to come this far away.

Mari turns onto a side street, footfalls echoing in the tight space between buildings. A single rectangle of light paints the pavement, mimicking the tones of the evening sky. She goes over to it, lets the light wash over her. From within there comes a voice, calling greetings and welcoming her inside.

She doesn't feel the agreement in her mind, but her body moves forward, slouching, to pass through the rice-paper doors and the sturdier glass ones behind those, to be consumed by the glow.

"What are you here for?" asks the girl at the counter. It takes Mari a moment to process the question; her thoughts haven't stopped wandering even though she's found a place to stay.

"I'm visiting the university," Mari says. "I want to see if I want to go there."

"Ahh, graduating soon?" The girl- Yuuna, her nametag says- hands Mari back her credit card. "I hope your trip goes well. You're all set, and you're paid for two nights. You'll be the second to last room on the right."

"Thanks," Mari says, shifting her backpack upon her shoulders. She stands there for a moment more, feeling as though there's something more to be said, that _must_ be said, but nothing comes to her. She turns instead and trudges down the hall, shoes squeaking against the wood flooring with every step, like the world is trying to tell whoever may be looking for Mari exactly where she is.

Only there isn't anyone looking, Mari thinks. She knows it's selfish of her to do this, she knows she should turn back and go home, but 'home' to her now only conjures up a suffocating feeling of loss tangled with loathing. She needs this distance, this space.

Mari approaches her room, enters it and flips on the lights. It seems then like some stray rays of sunlight have slipped into the room, coloring it gold, but the warmth is absent. Mari puts her backpack on the floor, locking the door behind her and going to the single futon on the floor.

She shouldn't be here. She should be in her bed back at the apartment, not curling up under a single blanket under a light that's dimmer than what she's used to, but here she is. She's here because she's supposed to be happy for Yui, but all that Mari's found within herself to offer was a bitter longing, the depth of which frightened her. So Mari's here now, having left (she tells herself) those emotions behind, running not from Yui but from these feelings she doesn't know how to handle (and that's a lie, too).

In a few weeks' time, Mari will be getting on a plane bound for London. She'll leave Yui behind in Japan, and hopefully her feelings for her too, though Mari knows that's a vain, faint hope. If she can't get away from them now, a few thousand more miles won't do much more for her, other than forming a boundary that can't be crossed.

And perhaps that's for the best, Mari realizes. Maybe it would be better if she left, the girl who was too young to be in college in the first place, and pretended everything that happened in Kyoto was just the faint recollections of a summer dream. But then that would mean severing the part of her that brought her to London in the first place, and something in that just feels wrong.

So she's here, now, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling coated in false, cheery light. She's here to try and separate herself from Yui- a clean break- so that when she leaves those nagging feelings won't accompany her across the sea.

Mari's phone buzzes in her bag, accompanied by the chime that tells her Kyoko has texted her. Of course; she'd forgotten that Kyoko would've noticed Mari's absence from the afternoon class they shared together, that Mari ditched in favor of beginning her journey.

Some journey it's been, she thinks, and ignores the text. She'll look at it in the morning when she's rested and her courage hasn't been spent by trekking halfway across the city.

And again, it's a lie- she won't look, she'll ignore it and everything else, because she's too afraid, because it hurts too much- but the lies come easier to her now, and it's not as hard for her to stave off the guilt.

* * *

 **Day 2**

They'd expected Mari to walk into the lab a few minutes later, but a quarter of an hour's gone by and there's still no sign of her. From an academic standpoint it shouldn't mean anything; Mari's grade is high enough that missing one lab won't tank her grade, and Yui and Kyoko are more than capable of doing the day's experiments on their own. It's the personal absence that's felt the most; Yui keeps looking up to speak to a partner who isn't there, and Kyoko has to keep reminding herself to write down the results.

"Where is she?" Yui asks, wringing the neck of a beaker between her hands. "Did she sleep in? You don't think she got sick, right?"

"Maybe," replies Kyoko. "She missed our last class yesterday. She might've forgotten to study for something, or…" She trails off, pausing to look at Yui. "Could be taking a break to de-stress."

"She has been acting differently," Yui concedes. She hasn't told Kyoko about what happened in Fuyutsuki's office the other day, aside from a half-hearted excuse that she'd ordered new glasses, so she'd given Mari her old ones. She's caught Kyoko staring at her, though, with an expression so closed and pensive that Yui suspects Kyoko _knows_ in that same strange way she's just right about some things.

"Just give her the day off," says Kyoko. "I texted her last night and she never got back to me. She probably went to have some fun. Maybe she found someone who's good enough for her, finally."

Kyoko laughs; Yui manages a tentative smile. If only Kyoko knew how close to being right she was, that Mari had indeed found someone. Yui ducks her head and pretends to focus on the beaker, ignoring that part of herself that _has_ wondered what things might've been like if Mari had approached her sooner, if she'd never met Gendo. The answers are always the same- Mari's too young, she's leaving anyway- Yui just didn't expect that even an absence this trivial would send the familiarity of everything into disarray.

"How are you and Gendo anyway?" continues Kyoko. Even without looking, Yui knows that Kyoko is frowning, bordering on sneering; her distaste for Rokubungi has been evident since Yui told her about him, though she's tried to tone it down for Yui's sake.

"Oh, we're doing alright," Yui says. They're doing alright, and Mari isn't. The thought is unwarranted, but Yui can't stop it from forming. "He's supposed to take me somewhere next weekend."

"Date night?"

"I would assume so."

Kyoko hums in affirmation, a note that somehow simultaneously holds her disdain for Gendo and her wishes for Yui's happiness. "Well, as long as you're enjoying yourself," she says. "We should be done, by the way."

Yui peers at the solution they've been tending to for an hour, which swirls blissfully in the flask holding it, a brilliant cobalt blue. "Looks like it," she agrees.

"I'll finish the write-up and take care of cleaning. You look like you could use a break, too." Kyoko pats Yui on the back, nudges her away from the table to the backpacks heaped at the front of the room. "Don't worry too much about her, Yui. She'll talk to us when she's ready."

"Right," Yui says, and staggers from the table in a daze. There's something that's inherently disorienting about seeing only Kyoko at the table, knowing Mari isn't the one handing their work in to Professor Fuyutsuki. Kyoko said she'd texted Mari, but maybe Mari would respond for Yui. Yui pulls her phone from her lab coat and stares at it, wondering what to say. Maybe Mari wouldn't respond at all. Maybe the resignation that Yui had felt in her the other day has bubbled over into resentment; maybe Mari won't even want to hear from her at all.

Yui's fingers, hovering over the number pad, fall and rest on the plastic screen. She finds there's nothing within her that yearns to be said, and even if there was, Yui isn't sure she would be able to ask it of Mari anyway.

* * *

 **Day 3**

For the first time since she's left the university, Mari knows where she's trying to go. She's backtracked past the place she left, riding a bus to the foot of the hills. There's a shrine up there: exactly where, Mari's not quite certain. She tells herself if she's meant to go there, she'll find the path, and if she isn't, she'll find something to do until she can catch the next bus back.

It hasn't really occurred to her that going home is an option. Returning now would be equivalent to failure, to running back because being away from home- she'll say that, home, and not Yui- is too painful to bear for long. To fail here would be to sink to such a pathetic level that Mari hasn't even considered it.

The bus drops her off where the main street ends, splitting into a series of smaller local roads and one well-worn footpath that twists up the hillside. She's the only one who disembarks- everyone else got off at the stop before, or the stop before that. They were all students in uniforms or salarymen with briefcases, neither the type to want to visit the shrine. No one does that anymore, Mari thinks, unless you're a tourist or desperate. And she- with her cover story as a traveling student- she's both.

Halfway up the hill, the familiar gateway structure of a shrine peeks over the rise of the hill. It doesn't look like anyone's visiting. Mari stops at a break in the stairs, gazing up at it. Why is she here again? (Yui?) It's a foolish thing to hope for something like love, she thinks. If she goes up, she might as well pray for something more useful like good grades or a successful career. This of course doesn't mean she's giving up on Yui, just giving up on Yui giving up on Gendo… that does make sense, right?

Mari turns off the staircase, follows another footpath that leads through the densely-clumped trees. The sun is quickly choked out by a thick cover of branches and leaves; it dapples the soil, lighting Mari's way in a manner that reminds her of uneven cobblestones on dirt.

Below, the day is starting for Yui and Kyoko; Mari imagines them walking into class and finding her seat empty- would Yui worry? Or more importantly, would Mari want Yui to worry about her? She doesn't know. She doesn't want to know.

The treeline parts abruptly, and through this gap Mari glimpses Kyoto, the specks of people traversing the streets, the distant buildings that might be the university. A wild thought- what if Yui's out there looking for where Mari might have gone to, what if she's looking this way? But no- it's another stupid thought, and Mari knows she's going to have to rid herself of those quickly.

Still, she lets herself linger on it for a moment more, an indulgence, a happy daydream to counter all those dreams she's awoken from to find her room still dark and cold.

All of this- the forest, the city, this stillness- it won't be the same where she's going. Mari's heard enough of England to know it has a life all its own, perhaps eccentric enough that it'll match Mari's strange tendencies. But when she goes- and yes, it's a when, she's committed and there's no taking that back- she'll leave all this behind. This and Kyoko and Yui, all because- here Mari's stomach churns- she can't stomach the idea of seeing Yui with Gendo (or is it Yui being happy with Gendo? So selfish).

Mari finds herself backing up, keeping the city in view. If she turns away now, she'll probably do something stupid. She retreats until she finds something behind her: a trunk, sturdy, broad. Mari sinks down against it, folding her elbows over her knees.

If only she hadn't gone and fallen for Yui. Then she wouldn't be wanting to leave all this behind for stupid, childish spite.

Maybe it'd have been better if they'd never met at all, if Yui was just another face that Mari learned to recognize from walking past her in the halls every day. Maybe, if things had gone that way, Yui would've fallen for Mari.

And there's that stupid imagination again.

* * *

 **Day 4**

This trip was supposed to be a break from everything, a quiet retreat, but so far it's turned out to be everything but that. When things are quiet- and they always are, unless Mari's gone into the city to drown herself in the bustle of it- the silence fills the recesses of Mari's mind, and all she can think of are Yui's hands in her hair and the stillness of the classroom in the moments afterward.

She should've realized long ago that running away wouldn't have done anything. Now, she's at least four days behind on lab work and counting, and she's got at least twenty messages queued on her phone, most from Kyoko and Yui.

Curiosity gets the better of Mari; she seizes her phone from where it lays beside her and taps her way over to the message box. She'll read Kyoko's messages first- better to get the worst of it over with first.

They start out as expected: Kyoko asking where Mari is, whether she's sick, if she'd like Kyoko or Yui to swing by her apartment and drop off the work she's missed. Those are from two days ago. Then the more recent ones- Mari notes the last one was sent at one in the morning. She goes to that one; if anything, it's Kyoko's style to be short and precise, and if there's anything she'll want to say to Mari, it'll be found there.

The message is a full two sentences, longer than Mari expected, and yet they land on her like blows to her stomach. The first: _if this is your idea of a joke, it isn't funny, Mari._ Of course- there's Kyoko's blunt tone in text; Mari can practically hear the upperclassman's voice scolding her.

And the second: _Yui is worried about you._

Mari lowers her arms, rests the phone facedown on her chest. She hadn't considered this, hadn't even thought about the possibility that Yui might be _worried_ for her. But of course she hadn't- it had flown over her head amidst the planning and the scribbling on maps and bus schedules, and here's the irony that makes Mari sick: she'd forgotten all about Yui in trying to plan to get away from her.

The phone buzzes, wrinkling Mari's shirt, and with that her thoughts tumble out of linear order and scatter. Mari pulls one end of her phone up, eyes the sender. Yui. Of course it would be her, now. She doesn't want to look, but of course she must- whether she's worried or angry like Kyoko is, these are still Yui's words, and they are precious.

Her arm feels like it's pushing through water as she lifts her phone again. She scrolls past the messages of Kyoko's that she's read- better to start from the beginning with Yui's. Or, if Mari were to look at things in a more pessimistic light: she wants to watch the dissolution, the collapse of their friendship from the beginning, see it all unfold.

Her eyes scan text after text. There will be no fall today, it seems. Kyoko's understated things, a first; Yui's texts are if anything, bland to begin with. _Are you alright,_ reads one, then twenty-four hours later, _Kyoko didn't find you in your dorm. What's going on?_

There's nothing for a while after that, just a block of texts from Kyoko, and it's like Kyoko's the worried one, but that's not quite right. Yui knows when to back off and give someone space, only this time that hasn't done anything at all. Mari has all the space she needs- perhaps too much.

Another message, this one dated in the afternoon, so short that Mari imagines Kyoko could've sent it, if not for what it read: _Is this about what you said to me in the lab?_ And Mari wishes she'd been there to see this one, if only because lying to Yui via text is so much easier, and doing so would've set her worries aside. She'd missed that one, but there's still one left, the one Mari just got. She opens it, looking away until it's fully loaded.

 _Mari, please come back. We can talk._

She does have to go back sometime. No crush, no immature refusal to deal with it, will ever be taken as a valid reason for a leave of absence. She'll have to return, she'll have to share her classes with Yui and Kyoko-

Just for a few more weeks, Mari thinks. A few weeks, and what is that to her? She's known Yui for so much longer; soon she won't need to, never mind that the parting will likely drag on for just as long, if not longer.

She could go back tomorrow, or she could go back now. It'd be one of those little things that wouldn't matter (but what if it did? What if Yui texted her again?). She should go. She _should._

Mari curls up, her phone sliding from her hand, lips moving to form silent words. 'I'm sorry', she mouths, over and over, until the essence of it has filled the room. If Yui were there, Mari imagines, she would forgive her, or at least say something. Anything would be better than this self-imposed silence, the exile she never needed in the first place.

* * *

 **Day 5**

She left in the early morning, placed the room key and the money she owed on the front desk and walked out without looking back. The buses don't run until the waking hours, so Mari walks with her backpack slung over both shoulders and a cup of coffee in her hand. Funny thing, that- she's always preferred tea, but if she's on her way back to Yui and Kyoko, perhaps it makes sense for her to drink what they do.

They'll be getting up in a few hours, getting ready for class. Mari doesn't know whether she'd like to see them, or to miss them just barely. She could arrive to class late- would they notice, would they think to look behind them?- but Fuyutsuki might call to her, and then they'd know.

Better then to just go to Yui and Kyoko's apartment. Besides, there'll be less of Kyoko's anger to deal with if Yui is there. They'll make up, go to class together, pretend things are still the same. Isn't that what they've always done?

Mari walks on until the sun begins to rise and the first broad silhouette of a bus appears in the street. From then on it's just a series of stops that Mari has memorized, the increasingly familiar tangle of shops and housing that gets all bunched together as she nears the university. There's another shift too that Mari fails to notice, not catching it until she finds herself wondering if Yui stayed up late studying, and not whether Yui even wants to see her. She would, right? Her last message said so.

But Mari isn't sure. She can't be sure, not until she's gotten off at her stop and made her way to the dorms, not until she's knocked and stands squarely in front of the door, growing more convinced with every passing second that this is a mistake.

Yui answers, and there's a blankness to her face that makes Mari think she's gotten the wrong dorm somehow. There's no way this woman, with her ruffled hair and bags beneath her eyes, can be Yui, but it is. Mari peers around her, looking for Kyoko, a confirmation she's in the right place. Yui's arms instead sweep into her field of view, pull Mari in, until all she sees is the pale pink of Yui's pajama shirt. "You came back," she gasps, and here's that tired breathiness of hers that Mari associates with finals week and all-nighters. "Where were you?"

"I had things to do," Mari says. She'd meant to say something else, but lying to Yui has never been something Mari could do.

"I'm glad you're okay. I just got so worried- why didn't you say anything?"

Mari shrugs, feels Yui's embrace tighten around her. There's a warmth spreading across the front of her shirt; it takes Mari a second to realize it's tears. Should she be relieved too that Yui has accepted this; should she be crying, too? She could try- she does- nothing, just a dampness.

Slowly, Mari lifts her hands, places them on Yui's back. She feels the tension leaving Yui's shoulders, the muted shaking of her body. They could be closer than this, Mari thinks. She closes her eyes. Now she can notice the steady shift of Yui's chest as she breathes, the beating of her heart. No, she realizes. This part of Yui that she's never seen before has been kept hidden away for a reason. This is the closest they were ever meant to be.


End file.
